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Doggies & Babies

We have this little Sila girl and we adore her so…

We call her our baby and she doesn’t want to be away from our sides for one minute.

She waits outside the door while we shower.
She hangs out by our feet in the kitchen while we cook.
She sleeps below our chairs while we’re at the kitchen table.
And…she snuggles as close to my side as possible every time I’m on this laptop (swoon!).
I call her my little blogger. Because one of these days she’s going to edit and delete or publish with her often erratic little paw.

She happens to be THE MOST PLAYFUL & FRIENDLY dog in Ecuador! At least compared to every single dog we’ve encountered while being here for nearly a year. She runs like a mighty girl and plays HARD & CUTE like none other we’ve seen.

Yesterday, however, she got a little injury while at her favorite park. While running and skidding mightily after a ball, she somehow damaged her little inner dew claw quite badly. Her wound was tender so we took her to the vet where she had to get a little surgery. Oh my goodness – our hearts! She is now supposed to rest for 3 days. I don’t know how that’s going to go over with her…

How do you parents do it? We keep thinking of what it must be like when a little baby is sick. Do you handle your baby’s (or doggie’s) sickness in the way that you thought you would?

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9 Comments

Our dog was acting funny/sick and after they figured it out, he had to have major surgery this fall. I took it really hard and was a complete mess with worry so I totally understand how you felt! Glad Sila's doing OK now!

Ha! I am the worst! I mean regular sickness I can handle just fine–I take care of them, make chicken noodle soup from scratch, etc. But injuries? A few weeks ago our middle girl hit her chin on the shower floor. She didn't even cry so I didn't think it was that bad, but when I went to get her she had blood running down her neck as she had split her chin wide open. It was still a very small wound, but seeing a gash in her chin, I was calling for my husband who came and got her then I had to go sit on the couch so I wouldn't faint. Here he is examining her chin, cleaning and closing the wound while my 4 year old is not crying (or at least very minimally–can't remember) and is being a very good patient is sitting on my lap while dad examines her and I'm just closing my eyes, feeling totally light headed and basically being the dramatic one.

I will also say that when it comes to sickness my husband and I do a good job of tag teaming… in fact he's often the one who will sleep with them or stay with them in the middle of the night because he can actually sleep in between throwing up (for example), while I'm just up the whole time. And for some reason he has had the joy of doing this the night before our last 2 daughters were born. The night before my 4 year old was born, our oldest was throwing up all night long. When the baby was born last year, our 4 year old was throwing up all night long. It's like a birthing tradition now.

No kids for me yet, but I do have a ridiculously amazing Catahoula mix dog who got hit by a car—get this—two hours after my husband proposed to me. We were on the phone with Jason's family announcing great news when a distraught woman knocked our door. Yep, she hit him! Talk about a wet blanket being thrown on our special day. We laugh about it now, though and like to say that Pink (our dog) jumped in front of the car on purpose because the attention had been taken off of him for a brief moment due to all the hubbub around our engagement. Pink was lucky and walked away with only a few broken ribs and a pneumothorax (air around the lungs), but definitely appreciated the extra TLC we gave him during the recovery process. The vet said he had to lay low for several weeks, so for quite a while, every morning I would start my day by walking him on a leash so he could still make his usual morning "rounds" (we live on a big apple orchard). One morning it was 4 degrees (!!!) and I remember thinking "this is love" because I didn't mind at all and that I was actually enjoying helping him keep his normal routine.

What a sweet post! We don't have a dog or kids (yet), but from my brother I know that the day his son was born was the day worry entered his life in a way he had to learn to manage. Lots of deep breathing and quelling of fear, I hear.

As an aside, my husband the other day met a colleague who just had a baby girl. When she said the newborn's name is Chloe, my husband replied, oh I just met a dog named Chloe! I saw her face. He meant nothing of it, but her reaction was such that my husband is now walking around a bit concerned that he offended her, by making the dog-baby link. Does anyone else have this kind of uncomfortable sort of funny story?

What an adorable post about your sweet Sila. I know how hard it is to watch your sweet little puppy in pain. It breaks your heart. But it breaks it in the best way, because it just shows how much you love her and how you don't want anything bad to happen to her. That is a beautiful thing to see. Just beautiful! Sila has the best owners in the world 🙂

Oh, the love for animals (and babies) runs so deep. Every time our cat is sick it just breaks my heart. I'm so glad Sila is okay… and I like to think of just how awesome it is that you can love a little creature so very much and they feel the same way. Pets are the best.

And I just had my first living baby after infertility and a stillborn baby and the fear of something happening to her can be overwhelming! I know I'll be a wreck when she eventually does get sick.

I love this post! It so accurately describes my Benji and how I feel about him. I, too, have struggled to have children and Benji is most assuredly my baby/surrogate child. Sometimes when I consider my feelings toward him I wonder how much more intense it must be with babies. It seems insane! Or maybe I'm just kind of a crazy dog lady and the feelings aren't as different as I imagine. 🙂

What a sweet, sweet, sweet post. I'm overjoyed that Sila found you and you found Sila. I love my animals similarly to children (they are living beings after all) and aim to provide for them (quality food, medical care) just as well as I would for human family members. And yes, their medical problems are traumatic for me as well. I tear up when I walk into the vet's office after any procedure and see that my pet is awake from anesthesia and doing well.

About the dew paw, if Sila hurts it again, you might talk to a vet about removing both of them. My friend's active dog kept ripping hers, so the vet just removed them. My understanding is that they are unnecessary.

Thanks for the heads up! I asked the vet about that very thing after I'd done some reading. It turns out the procedure they did on Sila was not a removal of the dew claw, but very likely makes it so that it her claw won't grow back. So at least on the one paw, it seems that she won't have the problem again. I'm really hoping the other paw doesn't have a similar problem.

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